Iraq issues arrest warrants for Chalabi, nephew

From Chronicle wire reports

Published 5:30 am, Sunday, August 8, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq has issued an arrest warrant for Ahmad Chalabi, a former governing council member, on counterfeiting charges and another for Salem Chalabi, the head of Iraq's special tribunal, on murder charges, Iraq's chief investigating judge said today.

The warrant was a new sign of the fall of Ahmad Chalabi from the centers of power. Chalabi, a longtime exile opposition leader, had been a favorite of many in the Pentagon but fell out with the Americans in the weeks before the U.S. occupation ended in June.

His nephew, Salem Chalabi, heads the tribunal that is due to try Saddam on war crimes charges.

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"They should be arrested and then questioned and then we will evaluate the evidence, and then if there is enough evidence, they will be sent to trial," said Judge Zuhair al-Maliky.

The warrants, issued Saturday, accused Ahmad Chalabi of counterfeiting old Iraqi dinars -- which had been removed from circulation following the fall of Saddam's regime last year, he said.

Ahmad Chalabi appeared to have been hiding the counterfeit money amid other old money and changing it into new dinars in the street, he said.

Police found the counterfeit money along with old dinars in Ahmad Chalabi's house during a May raid, he said.

Salem Chalabi was named as a suspect in the June killing of the Haithem Fadhil, director general of the finance ministry.

Chalabi said he would fight the charges against him which he described as outrageous.

Ahmad Chalabi, a former head of Iraq's previous Governing Council, said he and his nephew had only heard of the charges through the media and that they were politically motivated.

"There is no case here and I will go to meet those charges head on ...," he told CNN, speaking from Tehran.

"I have been fighting Saddam for many years and we survived that and we are certainly not going to be intimidated by this judge ..."

He said he had "grave reservations" about the court, but added: "Nobody is above the law and I am certainly not."

Salem Chalabi, a lawyer, told CNN the charges appeared to be very strange.

"The one against my uncle seems very weird because it has to do with counterfeit money and I was told that when they raided his house a couple of months ago they found the equivalent of a few dollars in counterfeit dollars that he was given as head of the financial committee of the governing council," he said.

"The warrant for me has to do with the fact that apparently I threatened somebody, I have no recollection of ever meeting that person, but apparently I threatened somebody who subsequently was killed ...."

Ahmad Chalabi fell out with Washington over accusations he provided faulty intelligence over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability.

Officials in Washington have also said he is being investigated for leaking secrets to Iran.

"Such a warrant has been issued, but no one called any of the accused or gave them a chance before issuing the arrest warrant," he said.

"These are very bad indications about the state of justice and law in the new Iraq," he said.

If convicted, Salem Chalabi could face the death penalty, which was restored today, al-Maliky said. Any sentence for Ahmad Chalabi would be determined by the trial judges, he said.

Ahmad Chalabi was a senior member of the Governing Council, which ran Iraq from the fall of Saddam until the end of the U.S. occupation. But he fell out with the Americans, and allegations surfaced that he supplied Iranians with classified U.S. intelligence on American monitoring of Iranian communications.